SoftBank Group will spend up to €75 billion (about $87 billion) over the coming years to build 5 gigawatts of AI data-center capacity in France, the Japanese investor said in a joint announcement with the French government at the Choose France summit. The plan is SoftBank's largest single AI infrastructure commitment in Europe.
3.1 GW first phase in Hauts-de-France
The first phase covers 3.1 GW of capacity to be delivered to the Hauts-de-France region by 2031. Three new campuses are planned: Dunkirk (Loon-Plage), Bosquel and Bouchain. SoftBank, which is both an investor in and customer of OpenAI, said the French build-out is intended primarily to host AI training and inference workloads for its portfolio companies and European enterprise customers.
Schneider Electric joins as industrial partner
SoftBank is teaming with Schneider Electric to develop a large-scale industrial production cluster at the Port of Dunkirk. The cluster will include two facilities: one operated by SoftBank to manufacture data-center enclosures, and one operated by Schneider Electric to integrate data-center power modules. The companies framed the partnership as a way to compress lead times for grid connections, power distribution and cooling equipment that have become the binding constraints on AI capacity expansion.
Why France, why now
France offers a relatively low-carbon grid powered largely by nuclear and growing offshore-wind capacity, and Paris has been lobbying hyperscalers to anchor European AI workloads in country. The deal lands as power deals for AI hyperscale data centers proliferate and as AI model labs raise record capital that will need somewhere to run.
Investment outlook
SoftBank has not detailed financing terms but signalled that some of the capital will come from its Vision Fund vehicles. Construction at the Dunkirk site is slated to begin in 2027, with first-phase commissioning targeted for the early 2030s.
Reporting based on coverage from TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Reuters, Fortune and SoftBank Group's investor release.